Uncompromising (I)

Learning from Khelben Arunsun was a strange arrangement, Cyrus supposed. Since the man had erred on the side of caution and chosen not to try and demand any special dispensations from the Candlekeep authority figures, he could only teach Cyrus for 10 days at a time after which he would have to leave and stay away for at least one month just like everyone else. The young dwarf reasoned he could have been suspicious of it all, insofar as someone lacking in feeling could be suspicious about anything. Healing the Weave and tracking Cyrus down before he accidentally killed himself via the Cursed Tome of Everything should have earned the man more goodwill than he'd lost during those few days. On the other hand, the man had business all over Faerun as well as the more domestic duties of his home in Waterdeep even if his wife handled the training of most his apprentices nowadays, so it wasn't like the Archmage didn't need the enforced leaves of absence anyway.

Blackstaff had come up with a very specific methodology for teaching Cyrus. One reason was that he was more often away than available so the bulk of actual magical training really came from Gorion. Father started out fairly optimistic and even slightly excited with the idea of finally introducing his son to the matters of magic, if a bit conflicted due to the age-old distrust that Dwarves had towards the arcane, as well as the rather explosive short history that Cyrus had had with the Weave. For once he didn't see his optimism crash and burn, as Cyrus' intellectual ability was very well suited for magic and it became quickly clear that he wasn't a Wild Mage either, despite his ability to cause such effects. The reason the young dwarf only advanced at an impressive pace rather than ludicrously quickly – especially since given a minute or so he could just focus on watching the weave and memorise the pattern of the spells Gorion demonstrated, allowing him to later instantly or at least wordlessly and non-somatically cast them by forming the pattern from memory if he studied them enough times – was due to focusing on the real objective of the entire learning plan.

That was to say, when Khelben dropped by he worked almost exclusively on item enchantment with him. Once he had Cyrus thoroughly versed in the most basic of enchantment recipes and methodologies, he challenged him to try and discover new combinations of cantrips, spells and material components, and to use his inner essence to brute-force those that didn't want to work as long as he did it under supervision. Given the tendency of the Bhaal taint to affect things whether Cyrus wanted it to or not, even invalid or outright nonsensical ideas like trying to enchant a hazelnut with the Mending cantrip resulted in something. That said something was along the lines of a curse of decay applied to the plot of soil the hazelnut was planted in was unfortunate to be sure, but ultimately worked as Cyrus had theorized and eased his inner boiling pot for all life and reason into a slightly calmer simmer, if only temporarily. The health-hazardous (or worse) "inventions" started piling up fairly quickly after that, since the same procedures had diminishing returns due to the taint apparently getting better at self-propagation and recovery as well with each repetition, but they were able to reach a pattern of sorts. Cyrus never reached the point where he could be said to have real empathy and the most meaningful emotions like love still eluded him, but at least he could sense more than echoes most of the time after the first few months.

In-between the latest and next upcoming death-dealing not-necessarily-inanimate object, Khelben Arunsun taught Cyrus magic theory and spells from those schools that Gorion wouldn't or couldn't fully guide him through on account of being a specialist abjurer himself (among other issues but those aren't relevant right now). So transmutation, illusion, enchantment and conjuration all came from the Archmage of Waterdeep. Studies in those schools progressed even more slowly, if that term even applied to him, due to Arunsun demanding that his student try out at least ten different essence-supplemented enchantment ideas with each new cantrip, spell or symbol, as well as manage to create at least one essence-supplemented enchanted item that did not cause more harm than good. That last demand took more time than everything else combined and never quite worked out properly, but it was the sole reason the Bhaal taint's own replenishing and adaption rate didn't outpace the diminishment of its hold on him.

There were some incidents during the first year involving careless or curious seekers or even monks that made the mistake of playing around with some of the not-yet-locked-up items he filled with murder essence, but fortunately no one died. Some of the people under "influence" did get sentenced to gather shellfish for a month or so due to damage they did to this or that book "while acting under influence" but at least no one got de-handed.

Gorion had made sure to tell his son, repeatedly, that it was not his fault some people had less sense than curiosity but maybe they should procure a better lockbox of some sort before letting things pile up again? Khelben had not reacted at all on the outside – he never exhibited anything besides a stern countenance devoid of praise and insult alike – but his self-shade had gradually been turning from grey/dark/clotted into something Cyrus had no frame of reference for, and it looked in that moment that perhaps he would have laughed if not for the inertia of having lived centuries almost never laughing at all.

But the next time he dropped by the Archmage brought along the best chest he could make on order, one constructed out of Sapient Pearwood, a wood very nearly impervious to magic. The man then produced a second one just like it, put it in front of the young dwarf and told Cyrus, barefaced, to go wild. There were some explanations about how the wood being nearly entirely supernaturally inert might actually manage to weather the worst of what Cyrus could shove into it, but ultimately the argument was less an argument and more along the lines of "there is a point where we needed to stop and we have clearly passed it, but let's keep going and see what happens." At least according to Father.

The Archmage did not use those words of course, electing instead to go on a long, involved spiel regarding the merits of his idea to let Cyrus "use the most uncooperative vessel possible to decant a large quantity of essence all at once in controlled circumstances." Gorion felt understandably vindicated after the dust settled in the wake of the rampage of the half suitcase, half homicidal maniac that sprouted a few hundred tiny legs, savaged the entirety of the top laboratory in the Tower of Exaltation and, after growing bored with the Walls of Force and Resilient Spheres that Khelben and Gorion kept throwing up, yawned sleepily and Planeshifted to parts unknown.

There had been an actual mouth. A mouth with lots of big square teeth white as sycamore and a pulsating tongue red as mahogany.

And Cyrus had only really focused on "protect" when going through the motions of the essence-supplemented enchantment too.

The two adults afterwards decided to use containers made of less disagreeable materials and further ensure each "enchanted" item was tightly packed, wrapped and warded away individually somewhere deep within the Keep's bowels. They even more decisively ruled to leave the backup Pearwood chest be, stash it somewhere well away from Cyrus just in case. Perhaps in a different dimension to be doubly sure.

Cyrus should probably have felt insulted but he hadn't had enough practice at caring about things yet, so he didn't. Especially with the change that the Blackstaff underwent on the inside after the event, a change which continued over the next months. Khelben's self-shade had looked fit to be dunked in water too cool off after that incident – angry, shocked, outraged, embarrassed, conflicted, hopeful, regretful, Cyrus couldn't tell – and he never seemed to settle back into the grey/dark/clotted after that, nor erupt in hot/tar/fire. Cyrus didn't note any increase in Arunsun's outer countenance but he couldn't help but feel the old Archmage had changed, or begun changing but fighting against it, whatever it was. Or perhaps it was the reverse. The young dwarf didn't know for certain and he lacked the frame of reference to bring it up in any sort of constructive manner and let things go back to normal.

A normal with a bit more exasperation on Father's part but less anger and mistrust towards the Archmage of Waterdeep.

Thus continued Cyrus Anwar's life for three whole years – though thankfully he managed to avoid creating any more eldritch abominations and the Spork of Flaying was entirely Imoen's fault – then suddenly it was 2 Myrtul, 1360 DR, his twelfth birthday.

Gorion had taken over the western half of that drop of "common" civilization in Candlekeep's Hearth known as Winthrop's Inn and held a little celebration for him in the westernmost part of the common area. Though perhaps "little" wasn't accurate anymore, given that in addition to Gorion, Imoen and Khelben Arunsun the occasion was also attended by Parda, Karan, Larth, half a dozen off-duty watchers including Erik, Hull and Fuller, as well as Firebead Elvenhair and Jondalar the Master-at-Arms (to be). Tethtoril himself dropped by for an hour or so, as did Amanther and Thearabho though the latter couldn't stay even that long because he would be going on duty for the evening.

The little emotional texture Cyrus had managed to scrounge for himself made him feel rather like he should be more appreciative of all those people than he was.

Gift-giving wasn't a part of celebrations in Candlekeep – the monks were mainly concerned with books and it wasn't like they could gift one to someone and expect it not to be added or copied into Candlekeep's collection. But there was good, hearty food, plenty of drink and a constant stream of pleasant music, an indulgence made tolerable by the sound isolation wards that had could be raised on command over the Inn for specific occasions like that one.

Cyrus sat next to his father at a table near the west-most wall, drinking from a cup of mulled wine flavoured with cinnamon. On the side perpendicular to his and backed against the other corner wall was Khelben Arunsun, but it wasn't him the dwarf was looking at. Instead, the boy watched and listened as Imoen had her first public performance as part of a band. As with all other trades and hobbies, there were quite a few monks who knew how to play one or more instruments and they had gladly taught Imoen whenever they could spare the time. Those same monks were playing accompaniment to her now as she performed her first composition, and Cyrus found himself surprised to realize he didn't immediately recognized all the instruments on display. It was a springy and rapid piece, so intrinsically Imoen that Cyrus actually chuckled for the first time in his life when she started hopping foot-to-foot and made her fiddle produce sounds Cyrus was fairly sure were impossible under normal circumstances. Looking deeper after concentrating for the first half a minute of the song he was even more surprised to see magic at work. She'd either learned or invented a way to make the fiddle strings wind on themselves oddly with every bow slide.

Well, she had spent nearly half the time he did learning magic doing the same thing just one table away under whoever wasn't teaching him things at the time, so she was bound to pick some things up even if she did have to divert a lot more time to catching up to him in terms of general lore and working on 1011 Uses for Prestidigitation.

Relaxing back into the normal world he also admitted that the man playing the tin whistle was remarkable in how he made the simple instrument sound as part of that performance.

The piece ended and the whole Inn, even the people not there for his celebration, burst into applause which Imoen soaked up with a blinding smile – Prestidigitation to render her teeth sparkling white? – and a few grandiose bows. "Thank you, thank you! I'll be here all evening! And if you're particularly unlucky I may even decide to try to come up with something on the spot, your Gods help you all. So make your peace with our prince over yonder as soon as possible if you plan to do the wise thing and scamper before that fate befalls this place!"

As Gorion chuckled next to him Cyrus judged that Imoen had gotten much better at jesting over the years.

"You're smiling," Khelben remarked, drawing Gorion's attention back to his son.

"Am I?" He reached up to his face without meaning too. "It seems I am."

There were no words to describe the colour that shone inside Gorion at seeing and hearing that. It was still a pale echo of what he used to be right after Cyrus' birth but leagues above anything he'd managed within since the balcony. The man wrapped him in an arm and held him close for a few moments but he didn't seem to have any words.

"Tell me, boy," Arunsun spoke again once Cyrus had been released. "Now that you've had enough time to grow accustomed to it, what do you think of magic?"

"Magic…" Cyrus actually had spent a fair bit of his off-hours contemplating that. "Magic… is an alarmingly widespread and far-reaching method to limit progress."

Gorion and Khelben stared. Neither said anything. They seemed to be too stunned for it.

"Don't misunderstand, I fully acknowledge its usefulness," the boy carried on as the improvised band started a more familiar tavern song. "But for all its benefits it's oddly counterintuitive in application."

Gorion blinked and furrowed his brow as Khelben seemed to find his voice. "And why would you say that?" There was no condemnation or suspicion in his words.

The dwarf eyed the Archmage. "Your memory is as good as mine is with active magic working on it, and yet you somehow forget every single spell in your mind every evening." He tilted his head as he drew circles on the lip of the cup with his fingertip. "How could that be anything but suspicious."

"I suppose it might seem that way," the old man said thoughtfully, though his inner shades seemed to have started fluctuating strangely for some reason. "But times have changed from what they used to be. There are good reasons for why things are as they are. I assumed you had come upon them in your reading."

"You mean Karsus," the boy guessed. "I still think it's suspicious though. I agree that Mystra had a good reason to limit access to spells above ninth level after that event, but to essentially redesign the Weave so as to literally mind-wipe every single Wizard in Realmspace every day still sounds beyond drastic to me."

"Memorizing spells is perhaps a misnomer," the Archmage argued. "It's not entirely accurate. What we do is store the complete pattern into our minds so as to transfer it into reality when needed. Power and conceptual weight is effectively condensed into a usable form that the Weave can recognise as needed. Mortal minds are not made to keep a hold of such crystallized concepts and power long-term."

The boy frowned at his cup. "And yet people could permanently remember those patterns just fine before Karsus, to say nothing of High Magic. And even today there are sorcerers who can do the same for whatever reason, as if the control mechanism in the Weave doesn't apply to them or is somehow degenerating if Wild Mages are any indication. And let's not forget Bards who have no need of spellbooks or any other wizard trappings to cast arcane spells either, so long as they have the means needed to include the audible components."

The two older men looked at the boy silently for a while, before Arunsun spoke once again. "You are entirely too paranoid for someone with your upbringing who is not at least twenty years of age." Then he sighed. "But given what you see with those eyes of yours and my initial conduct in regards to you, it's not entirely unwarranted."

Cyrus had more to say though. "One also wonders what people intelligent enough to become mages would be able to accomplish if they set their minds to other fields like engineering and architecture," he looked at the pictures lining the wall behind Winthrop's bar. "Weaponsmithing even. I can't help but think that inventions like the smoke powder and derived weapons that Gond gave Lantan during the Avatar Crisis would crop up a lot more often."

"Now you sound like a gnome," Khelben said with a quirked eyebrow.

"… I get the odd feeling that I just missed the signal for giving a specific response to that remark," the boy admitted.

Gorion sighed on his other side but his soul transmitted amusement as well. "At least that is not something you need to blame on the cause for everything else troublesome in your life." Cyrus and Khelben had revealed his awareness of his parentage from the very start of the new tutoring arrangement. They wouldn't have been able to hide it even if there had been a reason for it given the main goal of teaching enchanting in the first place. "Dwarves as a whole are known far and wide as a humourless bunch."

Cyrus almost asked if that applied to his mother as well but decided to leave it for some other time. He wanted the new glow in his Father's soul to last for as long as possible.

"Well then," Khelben Blackstaff grunted. "This would be the perfect time to try and threaten not to gift you with lessons in a high-level spell of your choice, but since humour does not seem to be on the table we may as well skip the small talk and get right down to it. Boy," the man waited until Cyrus met his eyes. "If I told you I would be willing to teach and even demonstrate a level five or higher spell for you to memorise with that second sight of yours and use as you see fit, what would you choose?"

"Analyse Dweomer."

It was like the world hiccupped at his immediate and completely unhesitant response.

"That…" Gorion started.

"That is quite possibly the most useless spell you could have chosen." The Archmage was staring at him oddly again.

"Yes," Cyrus agreed with a nod, looking away and at his cup. "The rods and wands used by the monks I am already familiar with, and magical equipment of any other sort is more or less pointless or outright banned on Keep grounds with the exception of security and peacekeeping forces, and even they keep all items hidden under loose robes for the most part. In all, save for when I'm in the Tower of Exaltation such a spell would have no purpose." The boy sipped from his mulled wine and used Prestidigitation to heat it back up to a proper temperature. "I imagine that investing in drawing the Weave pattern again and again as I go about my day would be supremely thriftless, especially if I attempt to eschew the material component and consume resources for absolutely no gain while attempting to compensate for the lack. And trying to enchant items with the ability would be even more draining, I suspect, especially if I attempt to outright conjure the required rubies via my non-arcane means. And my track record with imbuing the proper effect when using my auxiliary means rather than magic alone is practically abysmal so I would simply have to rinse and repeat and keep pushing forward with an essentially doomed venture." The young dwarf shook his head. "Such quantities of inner resources spent on an ultimately meaningless pursuit. Why, I imagine that habits such as those I just described would render all that unique power essentially wasted." His mouth actually curled into an imitation of that first and only smirk back in the wolf cave. "Practically worthless."

The inn was filled with raucous merriment but Gorion and Khelben Arunsun may as well not have been there at all, for all the mind they paid to their surroundings.

Then Cyrus' attention was suddenly drawn back to the not-quite-grey/dark/clotted-anymore that was the soul of the Archmage. The Archmage whose face had twisted in a supremely uncommon expression and whose shoulders seemed to be shaking-

Khelben Blackstaff suddenly doubled over and burst into helpless laughter so free and loud that he would have collapsed if not for the table and the hand he used to prop his forehead. The man tried to stifle it but failed immediately, devolving into the sort of roaring guffaws that less than a handful of people still living had ever witnessed from him before. The entire inn went dead silent around their table, all patrons turning and staring, some outright gaping at the spectacle. Even the minstrel group had gone dead quiet and were looking at the Waterdhavian with their eyes boggled.

Cyrus didn't see them do it. He almost didn't notice the sound dying and the field of self-stars going stock-still in their glows in unison, such was the boy's astonishment at the change that Khelben Arunsun's own self underwent the instant his roaring laugh burst from him for all to see and hear.

Under young dwarven eyes that weren't eyes, what was once grey/dark/clotted and more recently simmering, churning shade-hues practically collapsed in on themselves and then exploded outwards in an utterly dazzling display of sense-beams the colour of white, golden, emerald and that tepid ghost of compassion that entirely transmuted into a sun's corona with the consistency of silvery flare winds coloured pink/not-pink/royal-purple/violet and every nameless colour Cyrus had ever found pleasing to look upon.

And despite the very limited success of the enchantment plans and his only borderline ability to feel emotion, Cyrus reflexively drew an intake of breath that expressed nothing short of reverence. "Magnificent…"

Khelben Blackstaff Arunsun kept laughing for a good full minute before he became self-possessed enough to wipe his eyes and steady his breathing. Only at that point did he notice the awestruck look that Cyrus had pinned him with. "What's wrong, boy?" He asked, not schooling his demeanour even then. "Are you truly unfamiliar with the concept of laughter? Even you laughed once, however briefly."

Cyrus didn't answer. He didn't register Gorion weaving a silencing ward around their table either.

Khelben's amusement finally tapered off at his continued silence. "What boy? What do you see?"

"Deaths…" The newborn star shuddered as if blown through by a terrible wind but Cyrus knew what to say to prevent it from dying back to the clotted bleakness of before. He had just what was needed. He had the truth. "So many deaths just disappeared."

The brilliant star behind Arunsun's realm-self steadied and seemed to grow even further in brightness and clarity. The boy hadn't believed it was possible. Even though it still wasn't as bright as Imoen's it was much more complexly coloured and active, borne into existence by the joining of mental sophistication with equally sophisticated emotions that had long ago been pushed into the deepest pits of mirthless rationalization.

And so it was that Khelben Blackstaff looked at him utterly spellbound for the third time in his recollection, to the point that Gorion had to carry the conversation along. "Son… what deaths just disappeared?"

"Deaths that hadn't happened." The aftershocks of being so close to that type of internal transformations seemed to finally be fading somewhat, allowing him to begin making sense of things. "Deaths that would have happened but now… won't." He slowly breathed out as he forced his mind back to coherence. "And the blood… It's all gone."

The Archmage seemed to give a start and go completely still and unblinking.

Cyrus could relate. After speaking that thought aloud the boy himself just had to stare again at the star that had consumed the bleak/dark/clotted, all of Khelben Arunsun's preconceptions, regrets and hangups formed over nine centuries. Consumed and transmuted them into a shine so bright and harmoniously colourful that only Gorion's soul of long ago had ever outdone. Even Tethtoril only came close to the level of complexity in soul-light, though his shine was somewhat clearer and lighter. Evocative of his long-standing self-assurance in regards to his beliefs and morals.

And it dawned on the young dwarf then that the underrunning belief of the ancient man that the world would be better off with Cyrus dead, the belief that had steadily faded over the many months but never truly gone away, had completely and utterly disappeared.

"Beautiful…" Cyrus Anwar murmured reverently. Right there in front of his very eyes, Khelben Blackstaff Arunrun had undergone a complete shift in alignment. The young dwarf only barely managed to move his attention away from that wondrous sight and to the man's eyes, but he could do no less than express utmost awe after experiencing the birth of so wondrous a brilliance. "You are beautiful."

Whatever Cyrus or anyone else had expected to happen, it didn't matter. Khelben Blackstaff just doubled over laughing again, just as totally as the first time.